


to paraphrase this body

by sinagtala (strikinglight)



Category: Free!
Genre: Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, POV Second Person, Snapshots, references to s3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 14:15:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15753390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikinglight/pseuds/sinagtala
Summary: The trouble with him is that he wants everything. The trouble with you is that you always decide what you want is too much.In which Nao studies the names of bones.





	to paraphrase this body

**Author's Note:**

> When you think you've scratched your Naonatsu itch and it turns out you have not...... sufficiently scratched your Naonatsu itch orz
> 
> This serves as the Nao-POV counterpart/semi-remix to [this thing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15717330), though you can basically just take whichever one of the two and run.

1.

The doctor tells you it will be a few days before you can see again. You don’t imagine you’re being brave when you smile and tell her that will be fine; you don’t think it’s brave, really, to take things as they are. As ever, you’re content with what you can be certain of. For now, that is the nurse opening the window by your bed in the morning, so you can feel the wind blowing in from the ocean. That is Natsuya banging down the hallway in the afternoon, throwing your door aside, ignoring all the signs that warn him to observe silence.

 

2.

The trouble with him is that he wants everything. You’ve always known this about him, but it hits you in a new way the week before he leaves, as you go through his shelves and ask him which books he wants to bring and all he can say is _yes_ and _yes_ and _yes._ Everything is _yes_ with him. The box by your feet is already half-full. You wonder if you’d be better off throwing the book in your hand at his face instead—but then his arms slide around your waist from behind and he’s murmuring _what would I ever do without you, Nao_ into the crook of your neck, and you have to put it down.

 

3.

Because you no longer need a hand to hold, you make a habit of going to the doctor alone. You’re on your way to get your eyes checked when he calls you, from what you will soon learn is a room in a different hospital. You pick up the phone on the first ring; the first word out of his mouth is not your name but _Ikuya._ And again, _Ikuya._ Nothing further for a while after that, only his breathing on the other end of the line, a razor-edged, jagged silence into which the only thing you can say is _I’m here._ And again, _I’m here,_ as you lean your shoulder against the wall of the stairwell and allow yourself to ache.

 

4.

It’s fall by the time he finds his way to you again, breezing into your apartment with the first of the red leaves. It doesn’t surprise you in the slightest that you are picking things up for days afterward—his beer bottles from the counter, his clothes from the floor. Once in a while he’ll have the decency to get up from your bed and do it himself, let you study like you would be doing on any other day without him here. More often he’ll catch hold of your wrist and pull you down to him instead, laughing, and tell you all of it can wait.

 

5.

The trouble with you is that you always decide what you want is too much. Even here, with him curled so close against your back you feel his ribcage pressing down on the curve of your spine, one arm slung over your hip like holding you is easy. Even here all you can think about is the midmorning plane you have to make sure he doesn’t miss. You know that in five minutes you’ll turn around and kiss him until he opens his eyes. _I love you,_ you’ll say. _I love you. Now go._

 

6.

When your friends at school ask, it’s easy again to say you aren’t waiting for him. Waiting would mean standing still yourself, and there’s still so much you promised yourself you would learn it wouldn’t make sense to stop for anything, so you don’t stop. Instead you turn the pages of your textbooks to better understand how bodies work. You memorize the names of bones by saying them aloud in your room at night— _humerus, clavicle, sternum, scapula—_ and set aside in your memory the nameless, living places your hands have mapped out on his skin, distances you’ve never needed to see to traverse.

 

7.

Makoto is taller than you now, and broader across the shoulders. You can tell as soon as you see him, even if he’s waist-deep in the pool when your gazes meet. You know exactly how many years it’s been, and yet you still can’t help smiling at the way his face lights up when he says your name, at how the hand that reaches out to clasp yours is damp and wrinkled from an afternoon of coaching. All these things you see before you now are more than enough proof—nothing in your world is standing still after all.

 

8.

There are twenty-seven bones in the hand and wrist, more than enough to touch, to use, to move across distances. Today, again, you are holding a book that will tell you the names of each one. Today, it’s enough to murmur them under your breath— _tarsals, metatarsals, tibia, fibula—_ open your hands, and listen, and listen.


End file.
